HOUSE OF HR announces completion of Bain Capital Deal

Brussels, 4 November 2022 – House of HR announces the official completion of the deal with Bain Capital Private Equity, making the latter the majority shareholder with a 55% stake. The first acquisition to be made by House of HR under Bain Capital’s wings is Dutch company Agium, specializing in Finance. House of HR has also signed a promise to acquire French company ABMI, specializing in consulting and engineering services. With 16 acquisitions done in 2022 alone, House of HR is fulfilling its ambition to grow even further in specialized and niche staffing and digital solutions. Rika Coppens, CEO states, “Given the degree of specialisation of House of HR and our focus on high demand scarce profiles, we can maintain our ambition to grow.”

House of HR (HOHR) announced in May that Bain Capital Private Equity had entered into a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of a 55% stake in the company. The deal was made official on 4 November 2022, making Bain Capital Private Equity the majority shareholder at House of HR. Thanks to this new strategic partnership, House of HR will be able to scale up its unique platform into new markets and increase digital investments. The completion of this deal marks the biggest buy-out by private equity in Belgium ever. With this deal, HOHR now has around 600 employee shareholders.

In addition to this, House of HR also announces the acquisition of Agium (The Netherlands) and the signing of a promise to acquire ABMI (France), underpinning Bain Capital’s belief in House of HR’s acquisition strategy. With these last acquisitions, House of HR will have completed 16 acquisitions in 2022.

Further investment in finance in The Netherlands

Dutch company Agium was acquired by House of HR’s subsidiary company Redmore, specializing in Risk, Technology, Business, Legal, and Finance services for financial service providers, business service providers and governments. Founded in 2002 by Stephan Persoon and Robbert van Adrichem, Agium forms an extension of Redmore’s Finance services, specializing in Finance & Control, Recruitment Services and Finance Transformation.
With a revenue of 19.3 million euro in 2021, and 190 employees of which are 165 consultants, Agium (headquartered in Delft) entered the House of HR group early October. Redmore CEO Edwin van den Elst comments, “Agium has been investing in its people and clients for 20 years and is known for delivering quality. Agium's services are also a great addition to Redmore's portfolio. We already have a lot of knowledge in the field of finance and business process optimization. With the addition of Agium, we are expanding these services to new sectors. The Redmore group now has six labels. This makes us an even bigger player in the Dutch market. All in all, this makes Agium the perfect partner to help us grow in the coming years.”

Agium directors, Robbert van Adrichem and Stephan Persoon note, “Joining Redmore will give our consultants the opportunity to work with even bigger and more complex clients contributing to their ambitions. On the platform of House of HR we expect to better serve our clients in their goals and altogether achieve our growth goals sooner. We are looking forward to working within the House of HR group.”

Bigger presence in French engineering and consulting market

House of HR’s offer to acquire the French company ABMI has been submitted to the relevant employee representative bodies for consultation and is expected to be completed in Q4 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Once this transaction goes through, French company ABMI will form a close partnership via a common holding with Abylsen, the French engineering group specializing in Industry, Digital and Life Sciences services, part of House of HR since 2015.

Founded in 1984, ABMI is present in France and Belgium and has 750 employees of which 650 work as consultants. It is a consulting and engineering services group with a multi-niche expertise and the ability to engage in 3 engineering segments: (i) Product design and industrialization, (ii) Industrial processes & (iii) Industrial facilities (nuclear and railway infrastructures). It had a turnover of 50 million euro in 2021. ABMI was previously majority owned by Omnes Capital.

The new holding company would be led by Florian Massaux as CEO and Vincent Coent as General Manager. Both would remain in place as CEO of Abylsen and ABMI respectively. Vincent Coent, CEO of ABMI states, “To benefit from the support of an international group that is already very well established can only be advantageous for us. This new joint exploration is very promising for our employees, their increased skills and therefore by extension for our customers.”

Florian Massaux, CEO of Abylsen comments, “The coming together of Abylsen and ABMI is first and foremost a collaboration of two entrepreneurial cultures that saw in their amalgamation the strong potential for development, innovation and expertise. These perspectives fuel the mutual desire to join our teams, their enthusiasm and energy to push forward ever further our common ambition to become a European leader."

Looking back to a fruitful 2022

In 2022, House of HR completed 16 acquisitions and was the subject of the largest PE acquisition in Belgian history. By doing so, House of HR is fulfilling its ambition to grow even further in specialized and niche staffing and digital solutions. The common theme in these acquisitions, and the previous ones as well, is that House of HR supports each of its Powerhouses to continue their own growth ambition and thus keeping the entrepreneurial drive that House of HR is known for alive.

Rika Coppens, CEO of House of HR says, “Being acquired by one of the biggest private equity funds worldwide and completing 16 acquisitions in the same year, has been quite a challenge for our teams to deliver, but with Bain Capital on board there was no reason to slow our growth path. We’re very happy to see that we are growing our footprint in France further with the convergence between ABMI and Abylsen and, earlier this year, also with the acquisition of online student platform StaffMe. Redmore has expanded with the acquisition of Agium, one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands. Next year is predicted to be a challenging year, but we are very hopeful, with the drive and ambition in each of our Powerhouses, we can continue to keep up our ambitions. Every crisis also comes with opportunities.”

End of the press release.